Why do some runners make it all the way to their first marathon while others buy a pair of new sneakers and never lace them at all? I’ve been thinking about that question since my Learn to Run clinic ended at the Running Room and six of the 21 students competed in a five-kilometre race. What separated those who crossed the finish line from their brethren who couldn’t rouse themselves out of bed? For starters, four of the six finishers became pals.

“I always hated to run, but my husband loves running and he signed me up for the clinic,” says Ana Jung, a 30-year-old lawyer who smoked for 10 years and never had any interest in anything athletic, but attended just about all of the three-times-a-week courses. “The runs became something social. I’ve only known the girls for 10 weeks, but we became friends and formed a little network, encouraging each other to show up.”

There have been 800,000 people who’ve passed through the Running Room clinics, which have been motivating runners since the first Running Room location in Edmonton opened in 1984. The clinics present an easy, gradual training schedule, which is designed to encourage runners to move through the distances from their first 5K run to the marathon. My oldest student was 57-year-old Kendall Dunford, who was taking the class for the third time. For Dunford, the class was an opportunity to spend time with his 33-year-old daughter, and when she couldn’t make it, he also passed.

“I have no interest in running 100 miles or setting a world record. I find other exercise more recreational, like soccer,” says Dunford, a project manager who injured himself running on the treadmill and had to limp his way through our last class. “I don’t know if I have shin splints or a stress fracture, but I was numb from the knee down.”

Of course, while injury can be a common deterrent to keeping up with the clinics, another far more common problem is maintaining the routine. Mark Dante was an enthusiastic 30-year-old working in the nightclub industry when he joined the Running Room. After missing the fifth class, Dante says he felt lost.

“I got discouraged and felt like there was no way I can do this. I didn’t want to embarrass myself and hold the group up,” says Dante, adding that he enjoyed his first few classes, and plans to sign up for another Learn to Run course in the fall. “The week I missed, I thought it would be no big deal, but I tried a practice run on my own and couldn’t finish. Without the group encouragement, I felt like there was no way I could keep up.”

Of the six who finished the course, four were women, but 16 of the 21 total participants were also female. Everyone in the class appeared to be in similar physical health, and the one woman who found it too challenging switched clinics to attend Learn to Walk. So why do the same incentives not work on a relatively similar focus group? Gretchen Rubin, author of No. 1 New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project, a year-long program documenting her daily attempts to feel better, has an idea.

“Accountability — of the people who finished, I bet they all had some checklist or were part of a group or were somehow charting their progress,” says Rubin, adding perhaps counterintuitively that giving yourself a smaller everyday running goal might be more effective than clinics that meet three times-a-week because it becomes a larger part of your routine. “Exercise is the No. 1 resolution that people strive for and fail to do because you think that once you get behind, you get defeated. So you need to be held accountable, but also trust that every day’s a new start. No matter what I did or didn’t do yesterday, every day’s something new.”

Teaching the Learn to Run clinic, I found that the people who could least afford to skip a day were the ones who most likely missed. It’s similar to how I fell behind in high school. At first, I just didn’t do my homework — then I found I couldn’t do it when I tried.

“You only need to give up once,” says John Pitts, a 45-year-old Learn to Run graduate who begins his 10K clinic tonight in Montreal. “To keep going, you need to get out there every time.”

• Our Marathon Man is eager to give away more shoes. He’s on the cusp of announcing how you can win them, too, but you need to follow him on Twitter

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